Fox News host proposes Ebola quarantine ‘centers’ for every city in the US

Fox News contributor and former actress Stacey Dash on Monday called on the federal government to establish facilities in every U.S. city where suspected Ebola patients could be quarantined.

On the Monday edition of Outnumbered, host Harris Faulkner noted that the “government is really letting us down” because no one had been appointed to fill the role of surgeon general, and the CDC director was forced to do two jobs.

“I don’t care what party you are, you’ve got to get your stuff together,” she said. “We need a surgeon general. We need a pinpoint person. Look, from both sides of the political aisle this weekend, they started saying, where is this person?”

In fact, President Barack Obama had nominated Dr. Vivek Murthy for the post earlier this year, but Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blocked the appointment because the nominee had considered guns to be a threat to public health.

Fox News host Andrea Tantaros suggested that Republicans would approve former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as surgeon general.

“If you live in New York City and know Rudy, he put together and extensive set of doomsday plans for this city,” she explained. “So that when 9/11 happened, he knew exactly how to respond… And not just a terrorist attack, but a chemical attack. I mean, Rudy was prepared for everything. He anticipated every situation and what could go wrong. He was always ahead of the curve.”

But Dash, who was co-hosting Outnumbered, proposed a different solution to the Ebola crisis.

“I think they should set up special centers for just Ebola in each state,” she said. “They shouldn’t be letting people go into regular hospitals, where it could be spread.”

“I just think that for this specific disease, we should have a special facility with specially trained people,” Dash later added. “In each city. That way it’s not spread, and when the person walks in, they know what they’re looking for, they know if they find it, they know how to contain it. And they know how not to infect themselves.”

Comedian Paul Mecurio, who was also on the panel, weighed in to note that the movie “Outbreak” had been released in 1995 so the CDC should have had time to prepare.

“There’s a really bad health protocol throughout the United States right now, it’s called going to the hospital,” he insisted. “Like, going to the hospital is not a good thing in this country.”

“I think I would be very careful about saying hospitals were not the place to go in this country,” co-host Sandra Smith advised.

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David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.